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National Trends and Public Opinion Surveys

The article on HINTS began discussing the background of how the Health Information National Trends Survey that was created out of a 1998 conference on risk communication. The purpose of the survey was to gather information on the public’s sources and access to cancer information, their perceived trust in those sources, their knowledge about cancer and various other health issues, and the factors that may help or hurt their communication. Experts with experience in research surveys were asked to provide comments regarding the development of the survey. They suggested that the sample that nationally represents the adults in the general population, as well as not including questions about cancer treatment options or misperceptions.
The article continues on to discuss the criteria used to include measures such as scientific validity, utility and implementation. The survey was directed at the two different stages of health communications directed at consumers: awareness and information-seeking. The order of the survey began with general questions, progressed into more specific questions and ended with more common, general questions again. The sample was taken via telephone numbers and the survey conductors made sure to oversample minorities to get a proper representation. In order to increase their response rates, they made sure to validate phone numbers with addresses, mailed introductory letters two weeks prior to calling, mandated interviewer training and offered a $2 incentive. In the end, the interviewers were allowed nine callback attempts and 19,509 households were reached. They hope to utilize the survey as a research vehicle in the future for specific cancer research by protecting their specific methodology.
The second article discussed the need to use opinion surveys to track public response to bioterrorist attacks. It opened with a discussion on how government agencies and universities rarely conducted surveys to see the public opinion of a current crisis. The majority of this information came from media polls which are only available when a specific issue is the top concern at the time. It continues on to discuss the need of public opinion during public health crisis in order to fill information voids. To fill this void, short-duration, rapid-turnaround surveys are used during times of crisis because of the possibility of sudden changes in behavior and mood. These surveys typically measured the public’s confidence in public figures to alert them, precautions they may already be taking against attacks, their knowledge of disease and treatment, attitudes on vaccination and the likelihood of discrimination in the provision of post-attack services.
In my opinion, I think it is important to make public health issues an important topic of discussion and that the government and universities should make more of an effort to implement public opinion polls during these moments of crisis. I think that there have been times when a health crisis may have seemed downplayed because of the lack of attention the media and top officials provided. A recent example would be the swine flu. Many people died from this epidemic and I think a lot of people just assumed it could not happen to them so it continued to spread. I’m aware that early on it was impossible to understand how severe the illness was but as time went on and more and more people got sick and died, the government and university officials should have made a point to be more in the public eye to stress the urgency and importance of taking preventative measures against this flu. I know personally, I knew that people had died from the illness but I wasn’t scared to the point of making sure I was sanitizing my counters more frequently or constantly putting on anti-bacterial gel. I think sometimes our society and country gets lulled into thinking that bad things cannot happen to us and that crisis and epidemics only happen in other places. This can be damaging in the long run because we are unsuspecting and unprepared. An example would be the terrorist attacks on September 11th. We never imagined we would be at the forefront of terrorists’ minds and so proper security measures were not in place to prevent this catastrophe from happening.
I found an article from the New York Times discussing the prevention measures that health care workers are taking this season to avoid the flu . It was located pretty far down the page which goes to show that it is not a true topic of conversation even though it directly impacts the health and wellness of every American. The poll found that even though flu shots are recommended for all health care providers, less than half actually get vaccinated during flu season. This statistic demonstrates that the epidemic has not been portrayed as severe enough or dangerous enough to ensure a large majority take preventative measures to protect themselves. The poll reported that only 37% of the health care providers actually received the H1N1 swine flu vaccination.
I think this poll story and the articles’ discussion regarding the need to alert and communicate with the public for various times of crisis demonstrate that there is a large opportunity for improvement. I am glad that there are efforts being made to better the lines of communication but I personally believe that the government and the media can work together to ensure the level of disaster is clearly communicated to the American public.